T
he feminine look of the Rococo style suggests that the taste
and social initiative of women dominated the age—and, to a
large extent, they did. Women—for example, Madame de Pompa-
dour (1721–1764), mistress of Louis XV of France; Maria Theresa
(1717–1780), archduchess of Austria and queen of Hungary and
Bohemia; and Empresses Elizabeth (r. 1741–1762) and Catherine
the Great (r. 1762–1796) of Russia—held some of the most influen-
tial positions in Europe. Female taste also had an impact in numer-
ous smaller courts as well as in the private sphere.
In the early 18th century, Paris was the social capital of Europe,
and the Rococo salon (FIG. 29-2) was the center of Parisian society.
Wealthy, ambitious, and clever society hostesses competed to attract
the most famous and the most accomplished people to their salons,
whether in Paris or elsewhere in Europe (FIG. 29-3). The medium of
social intercourse was conversation spiced with wit, repartee as
quick and deft as a fencing match. Artifice reigned supreme, and
participants considered enthusiasm or sincerity in bad taste.
The women who hosted these salons referred to themselves as
femmes savantes,or learned women. Among them was Julie de
Lespinasse (1732–1776), one of the most articulate, urbane, and in-
telligent French women of the time. She held daily salons from five
o’clock until nine in the evening. The book Memoirs of Marmontel
documented the liveliness of these gatherings and the remarkable
nature of this hostess.
The circle was formed of persons who were not bound together. She
had taken them here and there in society, but so well assorted were
they that once there they fell into harmony like the strings of an in-
strument touched by an able hand. Following out that comparison,
I may say that she played the instrument with an art that came of
genius; she seemed to know what tone each string would yield before
she touched it; I mean to say that our minds and our natures were so
well known to her that in order to bring them into play she had but to
say a word. Nowhere was conversation more lively, more brilliant, or
better regulated than at her house. It was a rare phenomenon indeed,
the degree of tempered, equable heat which she knew so well how to
maintain, sometimes by moderating it, sometimes by quickening it.
The continual activity of her soul was communicated to our souls, but
measurably; her imagination was the mainspring, her reason the regu-
lator. Remark that the brains she stirred at will were neither feeble nor
frivolous....Her talent for casting out a thought and giving it for dis-
cussion to men of that class, her own talent in discussing it with preci-
sion, sometimes with eloquence, her talent for bringing forward new
ideas and varying the topic—always with the facility and ease of a fairy... these talents, I say, were not those of an ordinary woman. It was not
with the follies of fashion and vanity that daily, during four hours of
conversation, without languor and without vacuum, she knew how to
make herself interesting to a wide circle of strong minds.*
* Jean François Marmontel,Memoirs of Marmontel,translated by Brigit Patmore
(London: Routledge, 1930), 270.Femmes Savantes and Salon Culture
WRITTEN SOURCES29-3François de
Cuvilliés,Hall of
Mirrors, the Amalienburg,
Nymphenburg Palace
park, Munich, Germany,
early 18th century.
Designed by a French
architect, this circular
hall in a German lodge
displays the Rococo
architectural style at its
zenith, dazzling the eye
with the organic interplay
of mirrors, crystal, and
stucco relief.Rococo 753